Where is Greater Ruaha?
The Ruaha landscape lies in central Tanzania, around Ruaha National Park and the Great Ruaha River. Here, savannah meets miombo woodland. The wider Rungwa-Ruaha landscape includes protected areas and neighbouring community lands, rather than just the national park.
How large is the landscape?
Lion Landscapes describes the Rungwa-Ruaha landscape as covering over 50,000 square kilometres, with Ruaha National Park at its heart covering over 20,000 square kilometres. These are different boundaries. The still larger Ruaha-Katavi conservation landscape is a separate geographic scale and should not be treated as the area of Ruaha alone.
How many wild dogs live here?
An estimated 500 adult wild dogs in 35 packs were assigned to Rungwa–Ruaha in the eastern African regional conservation assessment compiled at the February 2007 workshop (Table 4.2). This is a historical landscape estimate, not a current park census. It applies to the assessment’s 27,286-square-kilometre mapped resident range, rather than Ruaha National Park alone or every area now described as Greater Ruaha. The draft strategy labels the animals as adults and warns that estimates have a very wide margin of error; this figure was estimated by workshop delegates, not a complete individual count.
What does WCS report across the wider landscape?
WCS provisionally identifies 37 wild dog packs across the larger Ruaha–Katavi landscape and considers it very likely that more than 500 adult wild dogs persist there. Its species page does not give the survey dates, so this is an undated, provisional institutional finding—not a confirmed 2026 census. Ruaha–Katavi includes areas beyond Rungwa–Ruaha: the 37 packs cannot be attributed to Ruaha alone or compared directly with the historical 35-pack estimate as a population trend.
How are these populations being studied?
WCS’s April 2023 account describes a completed status survey covering seven protected areas and 34 villages in Ruaha–Katavi, using direct and indirect sightings, den research, faecal samples and interviews with 340 households. Results were still being analysed at publication. That survey account provides valuable evidence about research coverage and methods, but does not itself publish an individual population total or date the 37-pack figure.
Why is Greater Ruaha important?
Its scale and mix of habitats provide space for wide-ranging carnivores, including globally important African wild dog populations. Conservation depends on more than protection inside the park: livestock protection, benefits for neighbouring communities and ecological research help reduce conflict and sustain wildlife across the wider landscape.
Published sources describe different boundaries and survey dates. These figures are not a new census by Wilderness Again.